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C V WHITNEY rwvfH Whitney m Derbym Veitch Old Hands in Derby M Owners Ninth Derby Starter Marks Trainers Fifth Attempt By BOB HORWOOD HORWOODStaff Staff Correspondent Should the Eton blue jacket and brown cap of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney flash past the judges at the right end of the Kentucky Derby field one of Americas greatest sportsman will be scoring his first success in the coveted classic after a quar ¬ ter of a century of effort While Fisherman will only be the ninth starter to carry the C V Whitney silks at Churchill Downs at least two others regarded as the equals of any of those who tried and failed didnt get to the post postBack Back in 1930 Whichone was not ready for the Derby won by Gallant Fox making his debut with a victory in the Ballot Handicap at Belmont Park on May 28 fol lowing with a romping triumph in the Withers So highly was the son of Chicle considered that he was favored over Gal ¬ lant Fox in the Belmont Stakes but the footnote to that chart reveals that he could not handle the greasy going and was un ¬ able to stride freely while finishing second secondEquipoise Equipoise Breaks Down DownOnly Only a year later the mighty Equipoise whom some recall as being almost as dimin ¬ utive as Fisherman went to the post at odds of 15 to 100 in the Chesapeake Stakes which was to have been his final Derby prep but broke down badly in the race and was sidelined for the rest of the year yearAt At least two of the colts who did carry Sonny Whitneys banner at Churchill Downs eventually achieved a higher rank ¬ ing in the threeyearold division than the winners of those Derbys Phalanx sire of Fisherman failed by inches in his attempt to catch the frontrunning Jet Pilot in 1946 Whether or not he shoulda won that Derby Phalanx went on to demon ¬ strate that he was one of the most genuine stayers of recent years yearsIn In 1951 Counterpoint could finish no closer than eleventh in the Derby and was beaten by Bold in the Preakness but came back to set a Belmont Park track record of l474 for a mile and a furlong in the Peter Pan Handicap then won the Bel BelContinucd Continucd on Page Fifty CVWhitneyAfter First Derby Score ScoreFishermans Fishermans Owner Came Closest in 47 When Phalanx Lost to Jet Pilot by Head HeadContinued Continued from Page TwentyTwo TwentyTwomont mont Stakes and eventually was voted Horse of the Year YearIt It should be obvious by now that in the 25 years since C V Whitney won the Fu ¬ turity of 1929 with Whichone this versa ¬ tile member of Americas greatest racing family has enjoyed the fruits of success with such fine thoroughbreds of his own breeding as Equipoise Top Flight First Flight Phalanx Counterpoint and Fisher ¬ man but the steel of his philosophy has been tempered with no little adversity There is some consolation perhaps in the knowledge that misfortune never seems to strike bad horses but only good ones Never entirely sound Whichone finally went wrong in the Travers in which Jim Dandy scored his historic upset over Gallant Fox Equipoise was plagued throughout his ca ¬ reer by a bad foot and 20 years later Coun ¬ terpoint suffered a similar injury as well as several others othersHad Had to Hold Phalanx Together Trainer Syl Veitch has remarked that it was his task to hold Phalanx together with wire and bits of string Burgel Arab perhaps the fastest colt ever to carry the Whitney silks lacked the underpinning to carry his huge frame at the tremendous rate he would turn on and withdrew from racing after three or four starts as a ju ¬ venile venileC C V Whitney with his cousins John Hay Whitney and Mrs Charles Shipman Payson of Greentree Stable are the third generation of Whitneys to breed and race thoroughbreds in Kentucky William Col ¬ lins Whitney their grandfather was the first of the family to maintain a Kentucky farm though he is perhaps better remem ¬ bered as one of the founders of The Jockey Club and the savior of Saratoga Harry Payne Whitney father of Fisher ¬ mans owner and breeder started 19 horses in 11 Derby renewals winning two Regret became the only filly to win the stake in 1915 and Harry Payne Whitney scored again with Whiskery in 1927 1927Though Though he learned the hard way that something always seems to happen to good horses that inferior animals escape it was C V Whitney who remarked some years ago You dont have to make excuses for a good horse What he meant of course was a good horse proves his quality despite his bad luck or infirmities In the course of the years Whitney has made a number of other more or less pub ¬ lic statements reflecting his developing views on racing that deserve recalling In 1951 when presented with the New York Turf Writers award for his services to racing Whitney stressed his present love for the sport which he said he did not have when he first inherited his fathers stable many years ago agoIt It is a wonderful sport which despite its increasing size and scope manages to keep its skirts clean Whitney said Here in Saratoga we find the backbone of racing and this meeting at Saratoga testifies that this sport is truly a sport Owners and trainers come here every year to race for less money than they could gain elsewhere and we should be proud of that fact In no other sport including the amateur sports he added are the losers so quick to congratulate the winners We talk each other down and kid each other constantly but when the chips are down we are all together togetherMore More recently in an address before the National Press Club in Washington last November Whitney said My father once said to me I remember If you ever go into racing one thing you have to do You have to know how to take success and failure because about 85 per cent of it is going to be a failure If you cant take failure you have no damn right being in the business And believe me that is true I have suc ¬ cess I come up with a good horse like Counterpoint say This year I have Fisher ¬ man a good horse You dont see the failure before you get that horse and the discour ¬ agement I got it with Equipoise and I got it with Counterpoint CounterpointWhile While thoroughbred racing and breeding and such allied projects as the National Museum of Racing at Saratoga of which he is the guiding spirit occupy more and more of his time and energy Whitney is the antithesis of the playboy type of sports ¬ man The youngest flier in World War I and an Air Force colonel in World War II Whitney has devoted much of his life to public service President Harry S Truman appointed Whitney to his cabinet as as ¬ sistant secretary for air in 1947 then ap ¬ pointed him to the post of under secretary for commerce in 1949 a position from which he resigned in April 1950 1950Whitney Whitney is also chairman of the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co was one of the founders of PanAmerican Airways is a director of Cinerama Productions Cor ¬ poration and with Jock Whitney was a founder of Selznick International Pictures producers of Gone With the Wind Cur ¬ rently he is president of Whitney Indus ¬ tries Inc a lumbering concern a director of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York and a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History while he some ¬ how also found time to write a book con ¬ cerning his wartime experiences in the Middle East which was well received
